Gathering Peonies While I May

 

Peonies at Josie's, 10 x 8" oil on canvas board, from yesterday afternoon.

So I'm home, in a sense: I am packing to move and my life right now is the kind of chaos that happens when you're packing to move.

Which is why I painted this before going home yesterday, instead of kidding myself that I'd get any painting done once I was back here.

Photographing these things is still difficult, though. This one, for example? Lost most of the blue and violet tones in its green areas, making them more vivid and less natural-looking than they are in reality. I've corrected as well as I can, but it's not enough to make me happy. I suppose the thing to do is ... come see them for yourself, when they go to a gallery. :-)

White Petunias

Heartwood Petunias, 10 x 8" oil on canvas board. This painting, as I post this, is about an hour old. I went for a sunshiny effect even though it's very cold and grey out there. I'm pleased with the results. Glad that Josie Geiger basically shoved me out the door to go do something.

Now it's time for ice cream and Bailey's!

Irises Before the Storm

 

Heartwood Irises, 10 x 8" oil on canvas board

 

Six yesterday evening and the storms threatening, and I went out with my Guerrilla Painter Box and caught some irises, as the wind picked up and the sky darkened.

Glad I did it then: today, the rain and the lightning won't stop.

I'm still at Heartwood Conference Center & Resort, in lovely ... I am not sure if it's Chicog or Trego, technically, but it's a beautiful part of Wisconsin even with the thunderstorms.  Heading home tomorrow afternoon, maybe painting on the way if the weather and schedule will allow.

Heartwood Conference Center, Wisconsin

 

On the easel currently, my first landscape in Wisconsin. 10 x 20", oil on canvas, fast and loose, not really finished. More to come tomorrow.

At home, I've been in the midst of moving to a new apartment, and everything's been getting done except art. Being away from the mess and fluster has really, really helped.

Art Collecting for the Rest of Us

One joy of my adult life has been the discovery that art doesn't have to break the bank. And I mean real, original art. Good original art. Pieces such as this one, which I bought last night from Derek Davis:

Figure sketch by Derek Davis, oil on gessoed paper, 14 x 10"

Gorgeous, isn't it? Subtle, intuitive, full of light, life, and color. Guess what I paid for it. No, go on. Guess.

Twenty-five dollars.

Behold, I am an art collector, for less than it'd cost for myself and a friend to get dinner at Chili's.

This isn't a once-in-a-blue-moon deal. Most of us who make art professionally create things at all kinds of price points. In Derek's case, he paints quickly and does these studies for fun and practice, so he has a lot of them. He lets them go at $25 each rather than hang around his studio gathering dust. I got the benefit of that, and so can you: he was making more last night, when I bought this one.

Art is for everyone, and artists know it.